Shirley Maclaine's Mother Tongue

Language is universal and can vary from place to place meaning that it’s translated in different ways. There is no right or wrong on how a person views language. In “Mother Tongue” the author explains the challenges her mother faced from speaking her English. These challenges included labels, assumptions, and limitations that immigrant families can relate to in an English speaking society. The author describes the position she was in when trying to describe her mother’s English, and not knowing how to properly classify it. She would label her mother’s English as “broken” or “fractured” but didn’t like how that sounded. It almost seems as an internal conflict she was facing while dealing with these labels. The issue here is that she wanted to properly describe her mother’s native tongue without disrespecting it. That’s where the problem with labels come in, because those labels are categorizing …show more content…
” She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine's books with ease--all kinds of things I can't begin to understand”.(Tan, 6). Despite the fact that her mother doesn’t speak fluent English; doesn’t stop her mother from being involve. One automatically assumes that someone with little understanding of the English language is incapable of understanding a thing that goes on. The fact is that these people pay attention and learn everything but in their own understanding. Another assumption that is made often is letting the perception of others influence the way you think about a person. For example if I say a person isn’t intelligent without knowing the person is an assumption made by me and not factual. So put yourself in an immigrant’s position; they have to deal with this on a daily basis. All because they aren’t viewed the same as a person who speaks fluent